Tuam babies - No excuses for ministers to stay silent

Just when people thought no more revelations remained to be uncovered, a truly shocking spectre — 800 dead babies dumped in a septic tank and innocent infants buried in mass graves — has come back to haunt the Irish State and the Catholic Church.

Somehow, the appalling image of babies being so callously disposed of leaves an even deeper scar on the collective mind than the scandalous abuse of tens of thousands of children in institutions run by nuns and priests. That ranks among the darkest chapters in Ireland’s recent history. A shocking legacy, some acts were so vile that Amnesty International Ireland portrayed them as “torture” and as “inhuman and degrading” treatment by a dysfunctional system.

Surely to God, we all thought, nothing further could engender greater public disgust and revulsion at the way members of religious orders abused the toddlers entrusted to their care. But, as a jaundiced public is now learning, innocent babies born to unmarried mothers were so badly neglected that many died of starvation and diseases more associated with the war zones of Africa than with places like Tuam in Galway, Cork City, or Letterfrack in Connemara.